[Filmfestivalresearch] Call for pre-constituted workshop and panels for SCMS Boston

[ger zielinski, ph.d.]

Call for proposals for pre-constituted workshop and panels for SCMS 
Boston in 2012.

Please find below calls for one long-awaited workshop and three exciting 
panels that would certainly attain a strong resonance in film/media 
festival research. From what we have learned, others have already formed 
pre-constituted panels, which is excellent. The ones below are seeking 
one or more proposals.

Looking over the topics of the panels, we suspect there many be a need 
for an additional one on specialized or themed festivals. Please contact 
Skadi and Ger (co-chairs of the Film and Media Festival Scholarly 
Interest Group) if you would like to create one that is generic enough 
to include several types.

Remember that the final date set by SCMS for submitting is September 
1st. All panelists and workshop participants must be by then members of 
SCMS for the web-based submission to proceed.

Please follow the instructions below. All deadlines are set for 
early-mid-August. However, check with the individual call below, since 
some of these submission deadlines differ from one another.

1. Workshop on the pedagogical use of film festivals in film/media 
studies courses. Those of us giving courses and seminars on film and 
media festivals have much to share and much to learn about how to use 
the festivals productively to benefit the students. The workshop will 
consider issues such as:
• How to plan the film festival experience • The film festival as a film 
course • Doing festivals on a budget • Integrating a film festival into 
an existing course • Maximizing the festival experience.
Proposals: 200 word description;  brief bio with affiliation and contact 
information
Deadline: Monday, August 8.
Contacts: Eric Pierson epierson at sandiego.edu ; CC: Skadi Loist 
skadi.loist at uni-hamburg.de

2. Panel on adapting the work of Pierre Bourdieu in the study of film 
festivals of all types. This panel explores the important contribution 
made to festival studies of Bourdieu's work, while also critically 
investigating its limitations.
Proposals: 250 word description; brief bio with affiliation and contact 
information; 5 key words; 5 key bibliographical references
Deadline: Monday, August 8 (response by August 15)
Contacts: Ger Zielinski geraldzielinski at trentu.ca ; CC: Marijke de Valck 
M.deValck at uva.nl

3. Panel on Latin American cinema and the global network of film festivals.
This panel seeks to interrogate the role of film festivals in producing, 
promoting, and premiering Latin American film in Latin American film 
festivals (for example, Havana, Buenos Aires International Independent 
Film Festival (Bafici), Guadalajara, and others), as well festivals 
outside of the region, such as European and U.S. Venues (San Sebastian, 
Rotterdam, Cannes, Sundance, Huelva, Toulouse, etc.) whose increasing 
importance for the funding and dissemination of Latin American films 
cannot be underestimated. How do these festivals help to circulate these 
films and what are their discursive components inside and outside of 
national borders? How do film festivals shape the kinds of films that 
are being produced in Latin America, starting in the 1980s and 90s? How 
have the aesthetics of films shifted? Paper topics might address the 
questions above, and/or the following themes: The role of funding and 
training at specific film festivals such as Hubert Bals at Rotterdam, 
Cine en Construccion at San Sebastian, for example; histories and 
politics of one or more film festivals in Latin America, the dynamics of 
exhibition and distribution of Latin American films in the region and/or 
globally. Please submit a 250 word abstract and a brief bio to Tamara 
Falicov tfalicov at ku.edu by August 10th. Notification of 
acceptance/rejection will be sent out by August 15th.
Contact: Tamara Falicov tfalicov at ku.edu
Deadline: August 10

4. Panel on Film festivals and Urban Spaces
http://www.cmstudies.org/forums/posts.asp?topic=277832&
This panel invites papers on relationships between film and media 
industry festivals and the urban, sub-urban or rural communities that 
claim them. As film and media festivals of all stripe proliferate around 
the world, a variety of stakeholders jockey for position and advantage 
in the geographical and cultural contexts chosen to host them. Many of 
these events are well-established and have assumed a defensive position 
aimed at maintaining brand identity and prestige. Others are ascendant, 
still others nascent at best. Each of these communities, however, have a 
unique relationship to their event(s), and each of these relationships 
provides fertile ground for investigating the role of media festivals in 
promoting discourses of community identity, establishing infrastructural 
networks, reifying the importance of being mediated, utilizing the 
"local” to speak "globally”, and a variety of other processes. Case 
studies on particular events/locations, comparative analyses, and 
attempts to theorize the event-location relationship are welcome, among 
other approaches. Questions addressed might include: – how do local 
communities create and grow a successful media festival? – how do 
established festivals deal politically, economically, structurally with 
host communities? – what benefits or challenges accrue for host 
communities? – what is the role of the festival in supporting both the 
community and the industry of which it is a part, and are these 
imperatives always in a state of cooperation? – what does it mean to be 
a "host city”? – what is the nature of the mediation occurring around 
festivals (as opposed to that deriving from other events)? -- how do we 
approach theoretically and epistemologically the festival/community 
relationship? -- how do historical/archival approaches to yesterday's 
festivals help us understand today's? Submissions are welcome on these 
and related questions, and international foci are encouraged. Please 
send abstracts of 250 words plus a short bio to robert.peaslee at ttu.edu 
by August 15, 2011.
Contact: Robert Peaslee robert.peaslee at ttu.edu
Deadline:  August 15, 2011

Further details on SCMS, its conference, expectations, etc.

SCMS Boston 2012 Call for submissions:
http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=call_for_submissions

Useful general information on the SCMS conference:
http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=conference_faq

Useful practical suggestions on writing a successful conference proposal:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4867517_write-academic-conference-proposal.html

We wish you a wonderful summer and are looking forward to seeing your 
proposals soon! (Please make sure that you have joined the Film and 
Media Festival Scholarly Interest Group!)

Skadi Loist skadi.loist at uni-hamburg.de
Ger Zielinski geraldzielinski at trentu.ca


-- 
Ger Zielinski, PhD
Assistant Professor of Media

Department of Cultural Studies
Trent University
Catharine Parr Traill College
300 London Street
Peterborough, ON K9H 7P4 Canada